If everyone was taxed an extra pound, would that save the NHS?

[EddyF]

Might be a silly question but if you don’t ask, you don’t learn!

I have just a post elsewhere (not MN) where people are discussing their wait time to be seen at A&E and it’s quite shocking.

I think people would be In favour of paying a slight tax increase of a minimal amount such as £1/1.50 from tax to try and fix the NHS. Is this unrealistic?

I have attended a hospital in the US, and the experience was such a stark contrast to the feel of hospitals here. I know obviously because the US is not ‘free’ like the NHS. I just remember it being like a spa service.

They need to stop over medicating and ban ultra processed food. This would save huge amounts of money and lives. Not a lot of money to be made out of that policy though!

Reducing staff turnover and the use of agency staff would be a massive saving

No one is arguing that agency staff isn't cost efficient... but "reducing staff turnover"
can't be done with a magic wand whilst you're actually looking to cut costs in a over-heated system under pressure.

and prescribing paracetamol costs the NHS £80m pa which may be a drop in the ocean but it's quite a few nurses!

There's always going to be some waste in a very large organisation, and of course things can always be more efficient, but thinking "minding the pennies"'is a solution in itself is utterly deluded.

No amount of money will help the NHS. It’s a dead duck no longer fit for purpose.

It was specifically said these aren't quick or easy fixes, but they are things someone should be looking at fixing.

@Fadedpicture

Fewer GP appointments won't save money unless you actually reduce the number of GPs.

Given that GPs are overstretched, and people struggle to get appointments, a 1% transfer of appointments to pharmacies is hardly going to provide the capacity to reduce GP numbers!

But no one's looking at cutting the money that goes to the NHS, just trying to make it more effective with the money it has, rather than always throwing more money at it.

@Fadedpicture

Having been involved with those who manage social care, which is in a similar predicament when it comes to staff, a HUGE amount of effort goes into retaining staff. It will be the same in the NHS... But if there's no extra money, and a buoyant job market with plenty of well paying and less stressful jobs, you're expecting something that's not just very hard, but virtually impossible without any understanding of reality.

I don't agree with taking those on low incomes anything extra at all, even £1 a month. People already not being able to afford adequate nutrition and heating to stay healthy will increase the burden on the NHS. I'd get rid of the regressive NI and roll it into income tax personally.

@Fadedpicture

But no one's looking at cutting the money that goes to the NHS, just trying to make it more effective with the money it has, rather than always throwing more money at it.

Some not so subtle goalpost changing there....

You said that a 1% transfer from GPS to pharmacists would "save loads", and even quoted the saving in your next post when I challenged it!

If you'd said "it would make things more effective" - which is very different- I wouldn't have taken issue.

Putting more money into the NHS wouldn’t be throwing it away. It would be meeting the increasing demand for care that we have because our population is much older, we don’t refuse them treatment the way we used to, and we can treat more problems now.

The NHS isn’t particularly inefficient, that isn’t why it’s struggling now, and a drive for efficiency is part of what has lead to the staffing crisis that’s causing a lot of our issues.

I think, in an ideal world, you would build non private old people's homes in every major area where they were required. A sort of step down from hospital where there would still be support but they could move in there from hospital before being discharged back home if possible.

You would need the money to build them but more importantly the money to staff them and to be able to find the staff.

That way you could clear out those in hospital who could be discharged if there was care.

You need to up nurse's pay and also stop the system of employing agency nurses by having enough supply because that costs a fortune.

We need to revolutionise primary care and make it everyone's first port of call unless it really is an emergency. I lived in another country prior to the UK and I'm surprised how people treat hospital emergency departments here. More minor injury units and GP appointments out of hours that are easily accessible would solve this. People now wait when they are ill because they believe they won't get to see the GP so you have an odd mix of people who present to hospital v late or people who present v early. Neither is ideal.

Staffing is more of an issue than money but of course staffing could be fixed by throwing money at it. None of these are short term fixes and will take years.

I think we will start having to pay - for all prescriptions, appointments etc. look at dental care now - most of us pay, we just simply ended up there.

The nhs got £276 billion in 2021. Surely that's enough? So much money my brain can't grasp it.

I agree but the issues with the NHS are not going to be solved by sacking off Diversity Managers, esp when one of their key roles is ensuring people don't leave.

The key issues are buildings, equipment and staff - the first two can be fixed with money,
Staff? the UK hasn't 110k people who are either trained or capable of being trained hanging around, there is no point taking them from other sectors and leaving them short.

Post brexit, there is a shortage of educated people, a nurses needs 2 A levels, an AHP 3, of foundation degrees - the NHS has to compete on wages and T&C's.

Its no longer attractive to EU staff so where do medics come from?

It would be like putting more water into a leaky bucket, unfortunately.

You'd reduce GP appointments so need fewer GPs to pay, and/or the GPs would have more time to treat people who really needed GP help rather than them using A&E or their conditions getting worse and costing the NHS more to treat more progressed disease.

Yabu. It needs to be ended, it's unsustainable and not fit for purpose. Move to the American style of insurance. Taxpayers pay too much already, at least then we'd save tax, pay insurance and get a better service.

Those who don't want to pay don't need to either, freedom of choice, so win-win really.

@user1497207191

You'd reduce GP appointments so need fewer GPs to pay, and/or the GPs would have more time to treat people who really needed GP help rather than them using A&E or their conditions getting worse and costing the NHS more to treat more progressed disease.

The crisis in the NHS js largely down to acute staff shortages, and you're suggesting cutting GPs as a solution?!? 😖

But I agree your point that more targeted GP work through more appropriate self-referral to pharmacies could help disease to be treated earlier, which would benefit health and save money (or at least allow resources to be better targeted) in primary care.

What about those who can't pay?

Using your logic, why not £27 billion, ten times less but still a massive sum of money that we struggle to comprehend?

Massive savings all around for the taxpayer and the NHS still gets multi-billions (which surely must be enough - looks at all the number of zeros!). Win-win!

Based on £276bn, it costs everyone in the UK £4,600 per year. If you divide it by number of "workers" (roughly half), that's £9,200 per worker per year. Another pound or two per person wouldn't touch the sides.

I agree that it would help. Currently, the lack of gp appointments means that many patients are told by the gp receptionist to call the OOH service (which is 111). 111 will either tell you to go to A&E or book you an OOH appointment (usually several hours later at 1 am or some other ridiculous time). If more gp appointments were available, it would mean less patients at A&E.

Insurance is okay if you are young, fit, healthy and well off.

If you are not these things, it is very expensive. I wonder how many on this thread who say not a penny more tax etc have looked at the scope of a private medical insurance policy for themselves, and how much it would cost?

For a lot of people on an average salary, with genetic disease, family history of cancers, heart disease, chronic conditions, the old, the NHS is far better than that.

The biggest expenditure is on over 65s. Not because they’re obese or have unrealistic expectations, or are sitting under £50 lightbulbs but because we’ve put our money into learning how to stop people dying, and it’s worked
No, the issue is not people living longer but living unhealthily longer. I can't remember the exact figures and can't be bothered to look, but a large scale research showed that on average, women live with a long term condition for over 20 years or something like that, men even more. Then you had those who lived fewer years but with 3 or more long term conditions. That's the biggest costs. My MIL is 95 but has been really healthy and needed very little care. Zero from social services. She is less costly than her sister who passed away in her 70s but had an unhealthy lifestyle and was diabetic, suffered from high cholesterol, and had emphysema from years of smoking and needed a lot of care for more than 20 years.

If more people used the appropriate service such as pharmacy or minor injuries clinic, rather than GP then there would be more GP appointments available.

Currently a lot of people aren't able to get a GP appointment so they go to A&E, or use an out of hours service or some even call for an ambulance which all cost the NHS more than a GP appointment. More GP appointments available would save money and reduce strain on other services.

A lot of people don't seem to realise that pharmacies are a healthcare service not just a shop, it probably doesn't help that they're usually inside Boots or Superdrug and the actual trained pharmacist is out of sight.

Me too, I'm on a low income and the amount I paid was negligible to them but quite a lot for me - but I still think they should bring it back.